Here ye here ye! message board friends...

trw,
Not for nothing, I think you have morphed this thread. LOL

back on track then,downtown you have moonrakers,parrots cove,the upstairs place next to moonrakers and the old west indies,in salt river you have colombus cove and in f'sted you have st tropez,all of these places are closed so they could be taken over cheaply i think

Is Bombay still for sale?

i know the place above it is. you can always talk to Jeff Seroogy (owns Steele's Smokes and Sweets in town). He owns Bombay.

Is the restaurant at Salt River Marina closed???

Yes, it closed the end of June.

I loved going over to the Salt River Marina for breakfast
I'm going to miss it, maybe someone else will open it

you guys are AWESOME! you've given more info I could have asked for. So, now, I need names and numbers. I have lived there so I know the island pretty well. Just from what I've reasearch so far,I think I like Blue moon,St Tropez,Salt River and Stixx-pics of all but Stixx would be great if there is we site I can go to. TRW-thankyou for the heads up on the noise nazi's! I have done hours of reasearch now I am ready to start negotiations on leasing. I know this is very risky,but life is full of opportunites (even when you least expect) the question is are you willing to try,Even if this ends up being a disaster at least we tried.

did you read "Don't Stop the Carnival"?

If not, I and prolly several others here would highly recommend you do so .......

No one is trying to be a noise nazi or squash your dreams. People are trying to save you a nightmare and loss of money. I don't understand the joy in trying if the odds are steeply stacked against you. Try living and working in a rest here for a year first and still see if you think its a dream or just a pain in the a$$. Just trying to save you heartache, like others have said there's a reason why every place here is for sale.

there are a couple of places that are busy pretty much all the time because they have found a niche to fill,Dashi is one of them a great place it's sushi and they fill a niche,zebos is another because it's a wine bar and respectable and a safe place for women to congregate without fear of being harassed and it's well run,sharkeys fills the sports bar niche,then you have joints thats fill the pizza niche that are consistent as well,we are a diner and fill that niche,it's just a matter of figuring out a niche market and filling the void,so many places here are the same and in so many places the employees forget about customer service and what that means,sorry to harp about this but you people pay our bills,not my boss but you people.

I hear you Betty,thankyou. my husband is begining to doubt this endevour too. The more research I do,the less exciting it becomes. If STX wants to encourage economic development with the start of new businessess' why the heck are the odds so stacked against it. No one will be successful both for themsevles AND the community if it is made to be so difficult to pay the leases,business payment,WAPA-no wonder the island is imploding financially (for most).

all of my training in this business came from 2 4star hotels that i worked at for a total of 16 years between the 2 places and so when i started work here i went through major shock dealing with lazy statesiders that were doing this type of work to get by and west indians that said no all the time and assumed every white hotel tourist was rich,you can imagine the battles i had the first couple of years,oh hell i still have the battles,a guest gets what a guest wants and if i have to shriek and scream at a cook or a manager to get it i will and i'm very vocal about cooks,servers and owners that don't have that same attitude as you all well know.

please explain further trw,i'm not sure I understand your point? is it,the thousands of statesiders who have opened there and expect to lay on the beach all day and make "free" money and not putting any in effort? rude islanders who have seen this a million times?

we have a few great "restaurant/bar" owners here and i won't name names cause i'm tired of gettingbitched at but we have so many others that just drift into this work thinking it's easy and they turn into drunks and drug addicts or justplainbitterbitches,it's very frustrating to be an owner here because of the high costs of doing business and that in and off itself leads to alot of the bitterness and cynacism(sp) but then you have alot of amateurs as well,when i worked in princess a few years ago at one of the hotels i complained about food coming out of the kitchen too slowly and was told by the owner "their tourists,what else do they have to do" that too me is unnacceptable,the placei work at is for sale but not advertised,i'm the perfect person to buy it because i understand the business here but he wants too much money for the place,but it's the best one man job on the island

ok,so is it possilble to bring in enough money to afford the outragoues lease and business payments? say $10k/month-min? to me,what i've seen there really isn't that market there. i mean yes,there are very few tourists but locals alike? i didn't go out at night to see for my self except to Jump up but i was out and about alot throughout the day to every different part of the island,what's the scoop?

you really just need to find a niche which at the beginning of this thread i was giving you some good general ideas about what I think we need here

what about a floating bar? similar to soggy dollar? floating platform.....here I go again!
so I have add-what?

nope,not feasible,way to many nazis will shoot down this one and i don't think theres a need for it year round,upscale strip club, piano ,dance bar for the 40-50 something crowd and just a dance bar in general,maybe some drag every now and then,something "hot" nothing we have now is "hot" or even current it's all old lady bars,just boring crap

i mean how many more boring old lady trivia/kareoke bars do we need,the ones we have now are like watching paint dry, we need a happening night club that offers alot of different things, an entertainment complex

I think it is funny how without coming out and saying it we are talking about a "non-islander" place. Because last I knew there were many places (3 that I can name and not in town) that were hoppin places - bands, dancing, great music, food - but to walk in as a (perceived) white person you had to be with a West Indian. Again, forgive my generalizations of White Person (not meaning only white skinned - but perceived that way) and the same when I say West Indian (not all are, but there is such a range and no one word to cover it)

I think I have some very good,original ideas and I am excited to share them with STX. My husband and I ran a succesfull bar and grill here(not that that has anything to do with it now) but the issues there had to do with the tiny town,city coucil wanting a dry county and just plain location. We have some great "hook's" that could work we'll just have find out how we are feeling when it's time to make a commitment or back away from the idea. I don't know,I just don't know. I keep going back and forth and reducing it all down to daily tasks as opposed to weekly or monthly which easily makes way for the feeling of overwhelming-ness. TRW you keep me going on the idea even when I have decided to "abandon ship" before it's even sailed, encouragement helps,but I still don't know.........

You've been here, you have enthusiasm, you have ideas, you have relevant experience, so if you really want to try, you should go for it.

Obviously you're nervous, why are you opposed to working here for a year to find out if you want to open a business here? Are you only moving if you open a business? You're not going to be able to enjoy the island working for yourself the way you would working for someone else. Let them have the headaches the first year and see if you even like living here. Just moving here is a big big adjustment for most.

so you got an update for us?